Writing On The Web by Patsi Krakoff, The Blog Squad

Content Marketing Strategies for Smart Professionals

Blogger’s Block Strikes Blog Squad…Blogger Bites Back

By Patsi Krakoff in About Blogs, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Writing Great Blog Content

Grrrrr…

I’m going nuts. This hasn’t happened in a long time. I’ve been sitting at the computer for the last 2-3 hours wondering what to write about. I’m the gal who says blogging is easy, 1-2-3, done in 20 minutes.

I admit lately it’s been taking me more than hour to post. Some days longer. And I call myself The Blog Squad…I’ve even got a great little package you can have called Time Saving Tips for Smart Bloggers, audio, transcript, PDF handouts. You can solve your blogging blues with all the tips in this program.

Have I changed my mind about how nifty blogging is? No. Am I stuck? Yep.

Solution? Start writing about where I’m at, and then tie it in with something useful and relevant to readers.

Source of problem? I’ve been blogging so much lately for my clients that I’m dried up and stale for my own blog.

So what? I’ll bet some of you have the same problem or similar. You give your all to your clients, then when it comes time to do your own content marketing you’re as dry as toast without butter.

It’s no wonder the cobbler’s children have no shoes.

What to do? Just do it, just start writing and see what comes out. You may surprise yourself. One of my clients tells me he doesn’t write that much anymore. He finds it easier to hook up the Web cam and post a video clip. Hmmm…wait a sec. Read More→

Tags : blog content, blog writing, blogging, business blogging, Content Marketing, content marketing tips, content marketing with blogs, diagrams, how to start blogging, images, Patsi Krakoff, writers block, writing on the web

Ghost Blogging for Executive Coaches

By Patsi Krakoff in About Blogs, Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, Executive Coach Ezine Article Topics, Managing Your Ezine & Blog Tasks, Online Marketing, Writing for the Web

If you’re a busy professional, you know how hard it is to run your business and provide quality services to clients, and have enough time to take care of your online marketing and publishing tasks.

You may be a thought leader in your field, but if you’re not publishing content on the Web, you’re not going to get found, get known, and get clients.

You need to be blogging 2-3 times a week, submitting articles to directories, participating on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook… impossible for one person to manage and still have a life.

Somethings like social media updating and article submissions can be handled by a V.A. But others, like blog writing, needs to be very good so that it sounds like something you’d say, professional and informed.

There are a lot of outsourcing solutions but very few good ones. When it comes to quality content for executive coaches, I don’t recommend you hire anyone who doesn’t have experience in your field, a thorough understanding of your clients and target market and good Web knowledge and experience.

Good help is hard to find, as they say. If you’re an executive coach, let me know if I can help you. If you’re in another field I probably can’t write for you, but I can revise what you’ve written, edit it, make it suitable for Web publications.

Click here for more information.

Tags : Attracting Clients, blog content, blog writing, blogging, Content Marketing, content marketing with blogs, online content, Writing for the Web

Working at Home: Desperate House Bloggers

By Patsi Krakoff in About Blogs, Content Marketing, Fun and Irrelevant Things About Patsi, Managing Your Ezine & Blog Tasks, On Writing Better, Patsi's Story

Some days I feel scattered, like maybe I’ve got a bad case of Attention Deficit Disorder. Or, maybe my brain isn’t aging well. Here’s what happened yesterday and how it all worked out.

It’s not that I forget things, although that happens too, but it’s more like I remember too much, all at once, and start doing one thing, realize I haven’t finished the other thing, etc.

If you work at home, and on the computer, you probably have days like these. The door bell kept ringing. Thursdays I have help here in the house to keep it clean and functioning.

Gaby, my housekeeper from Jocotepec, knows not to bother me when I’m writing on the computer, but she came in because the dryer went out, so we had to call a repairman. As soon as he got here, of course it started working again.

Nevertheless, it needed a revision, so he went to work. Meanwhile the builder arrived to work on some screen doors. And Juan, the gardener, needed pool chemicals. Then the man came to fill the gas tank for the house. The painter came to repair some moldy walls. Read More→

Tags : Attracting Clients, blog writing, Content Marketing, content marketing with blogs, personal stories, personal values, stories, writing on the web

Blogging for Business: Persistence Pays

By Patsi Krakoff in About Blogs, Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, Writing Great Blog Content

Is your blog like my tennis, a hit or miss? Are you writing posts that are clear winners for your readers? Are you steadily delivering valuable, relevant content within the lines of your readers’ needs?

This week I’ve been watching the world’s best players battle it out on the courts in Cinncinati, Toronto, and Montreal. I’ve noticed a few things that applies to content marketing.

In one match, Marty Fish and Gilles Simon had a rally that lasted 33 shots. They exchanged power shots from the back court, until finally, one of them blinked and missed the line. Fish won, 7-6, 7-5.

Persistence and control is the name of the game. With me, I get impatient in a rally, and with a burst of aggression I’ll end the point with a whopping drive… clear out of the court.

I know people who blog like that. They write 600-900 words every few weeks, then wonder why they aren’t getting search traffic. Read More→

Tags : Attracting Clients, blog content, business blogging, Content Marketing, content marketing with blogs

Content Marketing Tips: Seth Godin on Tim Burton

By Patsi Krakoff in About Blogs, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Writing for the Web

Are you finding writing slow and tedious? Is your content marketing and blog writing as creative as possible? Are you discovering your unique genius as you go?

What can we learn from really creative people like Tim Burton and Seth Godin? First of all, we know they are really creative because they produce a lot of unique products – films, books, and blog posts that grab our attention.

Both these two professionals are examples of people who’ve found their genius. But we wouldn’t know that if they didn’t “ship.” If they didn’t complete projects and get them out the door.

And that’s the difference between wanna be’s, also-rans, and those who get noticed. In order to be successful, you have to get it out the door. Publish. Produce. And publicize.

My husband, affectionately known as Attila the Honey, decided to write a book about 18 months ago. I watched him do his first novel…then a second. And I just finished editing the third book. His book blog is here. Read More→

Tags : blog content, blog marketing, blog writing, Content Marketing, content marketing with blogs, Patsi Krakoff, R.M. Krakoff, Seth Godin, Tim Burton, writing on the web

Writing The Naked Blog: Dress Up Your Words

By Patsi Krakoff in About Blogs, Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, On Writing Better

What can you learn about blog writing and content marketing from the theater?

This weekend Attila the Hubby and I went to The Naked Stage production of Night, Mother, the 1983 Pulitzer Prize winning drama by Marsha Norman.

If you’re not familiar with this kind of theater format, the actors read their lines, sitting on stools, dressed in black, without benefit of costumes, scenery, makeup, or movement. Hence the name, Naked Stage: the presentation is devoid of any of the usual visual aids.

There’s a narrator to explain the scenes and movements, including sounds, which in this case consisted of a gun going off. He yelled, “GUN SHOT!” Not “BANG” but “GUN SHOT!” It is truly minimalist and much depends on the actors’ voices. Everything, perhaps. They don’t even look at each other, they are reading their lines.

This means that the audience has to work harder than usual. We use our imaginations and create pictures in our minds of how the scene plays out. And it works, since the audience has to stay alert and active.

Blog writing is similar. You don’t have the advantage of voice, or body language, or scenery and costume. You must capture your readers’ attention with words.

With blog writing and content marketing, you need to spell things out. Dress up your words. Nuances will be missed. It’s not that readers aren’t intelligent enough to connect the dots, but they are in a hurry and usually multitasking and scanning. In other words, they aren’t necessarily paying attention.

Because words are nothing but letters, you have to make them come alive with metaphor, story and informal phrases and questions.

A lot of text on the screen is like homework shoved in your face and someone telling you, “here, read this.” That’s why images, photos, diagrams, and video are so important. Heck, even adding hyperlinks breaks up the text in a blog post.

Remember the statistics about communications? Words only form 7% or so of our communication, the rest is 38% tonality and 55% body language. Writing on the web deprives us of a lot of the cues for meaning.

That said, don’t make your readers work too hard, or they’ll click and go bye-bye. Use as many images as you can, don’t rely on words so much.

Tags : Attracting Clients, blog content, blog writing, Content Marketing, content marketing with blogs, visual aids, Writing for the Web, writing on the web

Get Search Engine Optimized- Fast

By Patsi Krakoff in About Blogs, Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, How to...Tips, On Writing Better, Online Marketing, Writing for the Web

How do you know if your blog posts are optimized for search engines?

Good question… and no easy answer… well, except for one which I’m going to share with you here! Here are a few options for optimizing your content for search marketing:

Study Google and search engine optimization (time-consuming)
Hire an SEO person to do some optimization for your web content (expensive)
Become a subscriber to a service called Scribe Content Optimizer (easy, instant & affordable)

Here’s how it works. You go here, you sign up, you install it to your WordPress blog. You start using a free plug in called All-in-One SEO Pack.

You write a blog post, you fill in the information on the SEO plug in, you click the Scribe analyze button, wait a few seconds and get a review of how well your content will do with search engines. You then get a list of things you can do to raise your search engine optimization score.

Okay, seeing is better than me telling you. Here’s a snapshot of a blog post that didn’t score well, and here’s one that got a perfect score. You can see for yourself that the Scribe report tells me what I can do to raise my score, to improve my search engine optimization.

And here is a screen capture of a post that got a perfect score: Read More→

Tags : Attracting Clients, blog content, blog marketing, Content Marketing, content marketing with blogs, Online Marketing, online traffic, search engine optimization, search marketing, SEO, web marketing, Writing for the Web, writing on the web

Tell Your Story: Why Are You Here?

By Patsi Krakoff in About Blogs, Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Marketing, Online Persuasion

How do you connect deeply with blog readers and gain their trust? Through stories.

There are six types of stories you need to know about yourself, and two of them you need to be telling your blog readers, clients and prospects if you want to gain their trust.

I’m reviewing Annette Simmons book The Story Factor, Inspiration, Influence, and Persuasion through the Art of Storytelling. These are the six types of stories that are really important for your to know about yourself, if you want to influence others:

“Who am I” stories
“Why am I here?” stories
“The Vision” story
“Teaching” stories
“Values-in-action” stories
“I know what you’re thinking” stories

The first two are essential to establishing your brand, your mission, and your core values. It should be obvious why this is so important, but let me spell it out.

What better way than to tell you a story about myself, right? Don’t worry, I’m far too old in years to tell you my complete story of “who” I am, and I’m not sure you’d be interested in the full story anyway.

In order for you to believe me, in order for me to build trust with you that I have credibility and expertise in Writing on the Web, here’s an abbreviated version of why I write this blog.

In 2004 I had been working online for 5 years, doing okay, but not really. I was completely baffled by html coding and working on the web was a lot more complicated than it is today. Read More→

Tags : blog writing, Content Marketing, content marketing with blogs, Online Marketing, persuasion triggers, storytelling, Writing for the Web

If Your Blog Writing Stinks…

By Patsi Krakoff in About Blogs, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Marketing, Online Persuasion, Pathway to Profits, Writing Great Blog Content

Your blog writing can improve. What if there were a secret formula you could use to grab people’s attention, stimulate their desire, and trigger action? Ba-da-boom, instant sales and subscriptions.

Don’t be silly, there are no easy formulas, of course not. But just follow along with me here. I’ve been reading several neuroscience and communications books that say the same things in different ways, and I think these persuasion tips can easily apply to better blog writing.

Take a look at this diagram I whipped up with SmartDraw:

Grabbing readers’ attention is the first step, of course. (By the way, this doesn’t only apply to blog writing, but to other content marketing pieces and in general for web pages.)

Attention is generally done more effectively by negative content. That’s because negative stories wake us up. They activate the more primitive centers of the brain, especially the centers for fight or flight.

Negative stories start us thinking. For example, a reader might jolt up in their chair and think, “Oh dear, this could happen to me…” Like watching a car accident, we’re drawn into a story that is full of danger or fear.

But negative stories generate worry and anxiety, as well as caution. (You may be one of those cool dudes with an Alfred E. Neuman attitude, but don’t worry, even cool dudes feel the fear subconsciously. Oh yes you do, you just don’t admit it…)

Here’s the secret key to getting readers to act: negative stories get our attention, but they don’t stimulate us to action. To get readers to act, they have to want something different. So to stimulate a desire for change, you must switch your writing to positive stories.

In this part of your blog post, you start describing a better future. You enable the reader to see possibilities they have missed. Once their negativity buttons are triggered, you’ve got their attention, now do something with that.

When your blog writing includes positive stories, for example, how a client’s life changed when they started using your product, readers start seeing themselves in the picture.

Readers can see themselves in your story, and begin to imagine doing something new and different. This is how you stimulate desire for change. It is how you get readers primed to take the next step, to take the action you are going to suggest to them.

Let me tell you a personal story. Read More→

Tags : blog writing, business blogging, Content Marketing, content marketing with blogs, Online Marketing, persuasion triggers, persuasive stories, Writing for the Web

Blog Writing Tips for Business Clarity

By Patsi Krakoff in About Blogs, Article Ideas, Content Marketing, Getting Read, On Writing Better, Online Persuasion, Writing Great White Papers

Good business writing should be like a good butler: working smoothly in the service of the reader without calling attention to itself.

This means that you avoid language that sounds impressive. This weekend I was reviewing some books on business writing, including Harvard Business Review’s Guide to Better Business Writing.

Although these tips are designed for business professionals who write reports, proposals, presentations and memos, they are totally applicable to blog writing.

There is no better way to approach business and blog writing tasks than to keep in mind three realities:

Business readers are content driven
Readers are pressed for time
Readers are seeking out solutions

There is a confusing amount of contradictory advice about how to compose a business report:

Writing should be clear – but it should also “sound good”
Information should be simple and straightforward – yet cleverly composed to stand out
Get to the bottom line quickly – but don’t leave out background details

Use your words to carry information, ideas and build relationships with readers by speaking their language. Go easy on the jargon and cliches.

How you organize your content is important. Your readers will be drawn into reading your words when they are logically presented to flow in a way that makes sense.

Readers decide whether or not to read your post or report based on the first few sentences. You need to grab their attention immediately, and create a desire to know more.

The number one question readers are asking when they glance at material is this: “Why am I reading this? What’s in this for me? Why should I care?”

Not to be harsh, but they don’t care about you. The introductory paragraph needs to quickly establish the relevancy and utility of the document to readers.

An effective introduction briskly tells a story built around four elements:

The situation: A quick factual sketch of the current business situation that serves to anchor the reader.
The complication: A problem that unsettles the situation in the story you’re telling. It’s why you’re writing the memo or report. Read More→

Tags : blog writing, business writing, Content Marketing, writing reports